Glienke Katharina, Wolf Oliver T, Bellebaum Christian
Department of Psychology and Psychotherapy, University of Witten/Herdecke, Alfred-Herrhausen-Straße 50, 58448 Witten, Germany.
Department of Cognitive Psychology, Ruhr-University Bochum, Universitaetstrasse 150, 44780 Bochum, Germany.
Neuropsychologia. 2015 May;71:181-90. doi: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2015.04.004. Epub 2015 Apr 7.
Stress is known to influence learning in a complex fashion. The present study aimed to examine, in how far feedback-based behavioral adaptation and electrophysiological correlates of error and feedback processing during this process are altered after acute stress. To this end, a learning task involving conditions with contingent and non-contingent monetary feedback was applied to 40 healthy young men (two groups of 20 each). The participants of one group were stressed using the socially evaluated cold pressor test. A second group of participants underwent a control procedure before the task was administered and brain activity was assessed by means of electroencephalography. The analysis focused on the feedback-related negativity (FRN) and the error-related negativity (ERN). Stressed participants did not differ from controls in learning performance. They showed, however, an elevated FRN amplitude difference between punishment and reward compared to controls. Moreover, stressed but not control participants' FRN amplitudes reflected feedback contingency after learning and thus an outcome prediction error. For response-locked potentials, no significant group differences were found. These results indicate that stress leads to a stronger recruitment of the so-called reward system in the processing of performance feedback during feedback-based behavioral adaptation.
众所周知，压力会以复杂的方式影响学习。本研究旨在探讨在急性应激后，基于反馈的行为适应以及在此过程中错误和反馈处理的电生理相关性会在多大程度上发生改变。为此，一项涉及有条件和无条件金钱反馈条件的学习任务被应用于40名健康的年轻男性（每组20人）。其中一组参与者通过社会评价冷加压试验施加压力。另一组参与者在任务实施前接受了对照程序，并通过脑电图评估大脑活动。分析集中在反馈相关负波（FRN）和错误相关负波（ERN）上。应激参与者在学习表现上与对照组没有差异。然而，与对照组相比，他们在惩罚和奖励之间的FRN振幅差异有所升高。此外，应激但非对照参与者的FRN振幅在学习后反映了反馈的偶然性，从而反映了结果预测误差。对于反应锁定电位，未发现显著的组间差异。这些结果表明，在基于反馈的行为适应过程中，压力会导致在绩效反馈处理中更强地激活所谓的奖励系统。
